Con Air
8/11/97 Update
7/28/97 Update
7/14/97 Update
7/7/97 Update
6/30/97 Update
6/23/97 Update
(Note from Phil: Haven't seen this movie so no plot summary and no brash reflections from me but several nitpickers sent in nits. I thought I'd start a file.)
Reflections from the Guild
[Note from Phil: I have not verified these but they sounded good to me!]
M. Farahbakhshian: I suggest you should nitpick "Con Air" if only for the surprise of seing Colm Meaney play an incredibly foul-mouthed DEA agent. That and the incredible nitpicking material. "Miracle per Minute" is the formula for stories like those...
p.s. Colm used the f-word no less than 6 times , and that's before I got too busy nitpicking to count... rather humorous, considering who I'm used to seeing. (Note from Phil: Hmmm. Yet another reason I probably won't go see the movie!)
Jeni Gordon and Mike Trudell: If you are following last summer's tradition of nitpicking the movies, here are some on Con Air.
1)I wish that those drug lords would pick ONE jet. The first jet that is seen is a Sabreliner. Then, when that one criminal's head pops up in the bottom of the window, it pops up in the bottom of a Learjet window. Then, the next jet seen is once again a Sabreliner. Oops to the continuity people.
2)The wearing of tie tacks is not allowed in the army.
3)It seemed that the crime that Cameron Poe was convicted of had a big script hole. The element of self defense was never brought in, and I can't believe that he accepted the plea bargain.
4)If I was organizing a large scale breakout, I would only bring in people necessary to this. Why was the Marietta Mangler brought in? (OK, to deliver the best line in the movie -- the one about "define irony: a bunch of idiots dancing on a plane to a song, performed by a band whose members died in a plane crash) It seemed that there were way too many people in on this.
5)Having (Miles O'Brien's) the car being dragged behind the plane was a neat visual effect, however those don't climb real well -- that's why they have JATO rockets on board. The car would bring the aircraft's CG much further aft, and make the climb much more difficult.
Alexander Shearer: A thought: A lot of the movie was predictable, but I appreciated the ending, especially the fact that it did not involve the endangering of either wife or child.
The nits:
At Carson city, poor Pinball is stuck outside the plane. Surprisingly, he manages to keep up with the plane until immediately before it takes off. He's a fast runner...
Okay, so the federal marshalls keep a stockpile of weapons in the bottom of the plane. Why does this include assault rifles and a grenade launcher? Even a pistol can cause a disastrous decompression on an airplane. Under what circumstances would the marshalls need to use explosives? It's a good thing our heroic young marshall (Larkin? Or was that the airfield?) had the canvas tent between him and the jet engine, or it might have done more than knock him over when it went off in his face. Ahem. Though Sendino probably deserved it, it's worth noting that jet fuel is rather hard to light. A barely-burning cigarette probably wouldn't have done the trick.
Okay, those well-armed feds in the end are definitely Too Stupid Too Live. They want to get to the airplane, and have a huge flat plane to work with. Thus, they decide to go through the thin passage through the Boneyard, pretty much the only place they could manage to be ambushed and killed easily. TSTL.
When DEA agent Chief O'Brien's (Colm Meaney's character) car is hooked by the plane, it gets dragged through a tower. I'd want to see this again to make sure, but in the shot of the car actually going through the tower, there's no line attached to it. When it crashes down in front of the feds, there's a line again. Exactly what part of the car did that line hook to anyway? Tough car...
When the jet is dropping quickly over Las Vegas, it is down one engine, and low on fuel...then it clips the Hard Rock Cafe and loses half a wing. Somehow, it remains perfectly level for the rest of its (brief) descent. Immediately after, the plane puts down on the Strip. The Strip is surprisingly vacant of cars given that it's night time in Vegas.
Cyrus gets the clever idea of directing the water from the fire truck at those pursuing him. First - that didn't look like a tanker truck (no internal water supply). Second - I need to check this again, but it sure looked like the cops bounced backwards across the asphault after being knocked off their bikes. That means the hose was able to overcome 60mph (or whatever) forward speed and accelerate them backwards? Without caving their chests in?
Finally - enough with the cheesy gas explosions. The armored car should /not/ have blown up like that. It's just stupid.Of course, just having the car stall there was a pretty hideous contrivance.
6/23/97 Update
Brian Lombard: Nicolas Cage's obviously fake Southern accent will get on your
nerves within the first ten minutes.
Granted, I love Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I have to question the movie's
choice of their song. The movie is about a bunch of cons who hijack
their prison plane to seek freedom. In one scene, we hear them
listening to "Sweet Home Alabama". Wouldn't "Free Bird" have been more
appropriate?
The "Hannibal Lechter" character seemed like a really nice guy.
Right.
What is it with Mykelti Williamson anyway? In this movie, he played
Cage's best friend in prison, and goes into shock on the plane because
the hijackers won't let him take his insulin shot. Williamson played
Bubba in "Forrest Gump", and there's very little difference between
the two characters.
Can I nit the movie poster? It's really weird. It has three faces
on it: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and John Malkovich. But do their
three names correspond with their faces? Nope. (Note from Phil: I would imagine this had something to do with who got top billing!)
Mike Hanks: Okay. Climactic confrontation between Cyrus and Poe. Poe [beats] up Cyrus and then handcuffs him to the ladder on the fire
engine. Then Poe raises the ladder so that Cyrus gets a well-deserved trip
through some large skywalk between two buildings. Cyrus launches from the
ladder...
Uh...what about the handcuffs?
They're not attached to his wrist as he flies through the skywalk, the
air, the power cables... So presumably they were left attached to the
ladder. So how did his hand come out without undergoing some major damage?
Also: Cyrus smashes through a skywalk. He drops through power cables
(which presumably electrocute him, given the sparks that are put off). He
falls a few stories onto his back and lands on a conveyor belt full of
rocks. The conveyor belt drops him another 10-20 feet onto more rocks.
And yet he manages to stay conscious long enough to see the pile driver
descend to crush his head.
And another thing: Cyrus sez there's a traitor on board, and he wants to
find out who. Behind Cyrus is Johhny-23, who has been beaten bloody by Poe
and is hanging from a pair of handcuffs. Why not just wake Johnny-23 and
ask him who beat the snot out of him?
While I'm at it: Isn't it amazing that all these people leave the keys to
their vehicles out in the open where anybody can get them? Malloy leaves
the keys to his incredibly expensive classic Corvette just laying around,
giving Larkin (John Cusack's character) the opportunity to steal his car
and race out to the abandoned airfield. And the fire engine just happened
to have the keys in it so that the three prisoners (Cyrus, Diamond Dog, and
Swamp Thing) could steal it. And the motorcycle cops who come to
investigate the plane crash on the Las Vegas strip just HAPPEN to leave
their keys in the ignition so that Poe and Larkin could commandeer the
bikes and chase the aforementioned fire engine.
And finally: Larkin sez that none of the guards know about the DEA agent
posing as a prisoner. So when the "prisoner" is getting ready to be put on
the plane, Malloy (Colm Meany's character) steps up and sez "I'll take this
one boys" (or something to that effect), at which point he does a fake
"frisking" of the "prisoner" and slips a gun into the "prisoner's" sock.
Is it normal procedure for random Law Enforcement Officers to just
casually take over and frisk prisoners? The guards don't know this guy
from Adam, except that he's some DEA guy, and yet they let him step in and
search a prisoner?
Hokiest line in the movie: "Why didn't you just put the bunny back in the
box?"
Best line in the movie: "Irony is a bunch of idiots in a plane dancing to
a song made popular by a band who died in a plane crash." (Song: "Sweet
Home Alabama." Band: Lynard Skynard)
Doc Nickel: I hate to nitpick a nitpicker, but Mr. Shearer's observation of "jet"
fuel being difficult to light, while being techically correct, (JP-A,
JP-3 and the like are variants of diesel, almost kerosene. They'd need a
'wick', or to be finely atomized to ignite.) the fact of the scene was
that the jet had run into a gas station, and knocked the pumps over.
Gasoline could be clearly seen flowing from the severed pump bases.
This, of course, leads to another nit: When gas pumps are knocked off
their bases, very little, if any, fuel is lost. The pump draws the
gasoline up from the tanks, there is no pressure to expel the fuel, and
if the pump is removed, the suction is lost. IE, the fuel doesn't go
anywhere, it stays down in the tank.
Second, about his comments about the arsenal aboard: The "Grenade
launchers" were not for projecting high explosives, but rather for
standard Police and Law-enforcement 40mm tear-gas and riot-control
rounds. The scene had Cyrus using the tear-gas shells to ignite propane
tanks which they had left open. This can work, because the tear-gas
"grenade" burns internally to produce the irritant smoke. About the
arsenal, apparently accessible only from the outside of the plane: was
that a standard hoop-type padlock I saw them shoot off the door?
Padlock? To flap and bang around in the airstream as the plane was in
flight?
Lastly however, he is exactly right that the ladder truck has no
self-contained water supply. In addition to that, that sort of fire
truck should have several interlocks to prevent the ladder from being
moved at all, unless the vehicle is stopped, the PTO is engaged, and the
stabilizers are down.
And speaking of 'hideous plot contrivances', just where did this "gravel
crusher" that finally did in Cyrus come from? Are there many rock
quarries two minutes high-speed chase away from Sunset Strip? Besides,
that was a pile-driver, used for sinking posts, not a gravel crusher, as
evidenced by the conveyor belt feeding gravel (and Cyrus) in.
Now, my own observation: Here again we see an example of the "Slow
Explosion" where an ordinary guy can actually outrun the shockwave. In
reality, once Poe had seen the fireball, he would have had about .01
second to think "Yikes!" then it would be 'crispy critter.' The wave
front, or 'shockwave' of even a light explosion of, say, guncotton or
Dynamite, travels several thousand feet per second. That's how
explosives destroy things: the mass of hot, high-speed gasses knocks
things over and shatters frangible stuff. A fuel-air explosion as shown
would travel, initially, about 15,000 feet per second, and for that
matter, the blast radius would have encompassed Cyrus' group, Poe and
the old farmer, several of the neighboring buildings, and would have
probably damaged the 'JailBird' and the tower.
6/30/97 Update
Joseph P. Pintar: This movie was fun. Like The Rock, it delightfully throws
credibilty to the wind (what else where you expecting from a movie
produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) and just goes full speed ahead with
mindless violence between playings of Trisha Yearwood's "How Do I Live."
Great line: "On a normal day, that would be strange." Cameron
says this after seeing a car attached to the plane flying around.
I think it is time to retire the vehicle hijacked by the
terrorist bit. This summer alone has had Con Air, Speed 2, and the
upcoming Air Force One. Enough already.
I'm still not sure how the convicts got those items they escaped
their cuffs with past the guards (Part of me doesn't really want to know.)
The head convict got the items to make a bomb in his cell?
Larkin should beware of being close to doorways. He feels the
impact of an explosion near a doorway not once, but twice in the movie
(OK, the second one was a tent but close enough.)
Cameron takes way too long to make his move in this movie. He
doesn't try to make his move until after he's been found out. (Think
about it, if every undercover agent made their move at that moment, it
would be too late.) On the other hand, the DEA undercover agent makes
his move too early when he should've known it would have been better to
tag along and see what happens. Then, he should've made his move.
Is it just me or when the plane heads for Las Vegas, day turns to
night awfully quickly?
The other convicts didn't notice that the one Cameron killed was gone
for an awfully long time?
7/7/97 Update
Alexander Shearer: RE: Joseph Pintar's comment:
"I'm still not sure how the convicts got those items they escaped their
cuffs with past the guards (Part of me doesn't really want to know.) "
They actually showed all of this. The pins used to pick the cuffs
(by both Cyrus and Diamond Dog) were in their palms, shoved into the skin
near the base of the fingers. If you had the right kind of gross-out
aquaintances in grade school, you'd have seen that done in real life...
Pinball swallowed the fuel, with a cord leading back up to his
mouth (thus, he gave himself incredibly bad breath so they wouldn't check
it properly).
Ben Puntch: What, exactly, is the point of having a cache of weapons on an airplane
that can only be reach from outside the plane?! If there's trouble,
what are you going to do, climb out and check?
Sean Savage of Rochester, MN: [Concerning the inclusion of Mangler,] The convicts had no choice but to bring on the Mangler. They had to put
up the facade of actually transporting prisoners. They picked up The
Mangler at Carson City.
[Concerning normal procedure of the frisking of prisoners,] No, but when a superior officer comes over and insists you let him frisk the prisoner, you let him do it.
[Concerning the hand coming loose from the cables without major damage,] Did we ever see his hands after that? I seem to remember assuming that
he had is hands torn off, or something.
[Concerning names reversed on the movie poster,] This is EXTREMELY common. Go to your local video store and look at the
boxes for the tapes. In my experience, at least 60% of the names will be
reversed.
Now, I'm no doctor, but to anyone who is, tell me if I'm right or
wrong. Poe's friend wouldn't go into shock until he tried to process
sugar, right? Diabetes is the inability to create insulin, the chemical
that puts sugar into the blood, as I've been told. Why does he need
insulin? He hasn't eaten anything! He has to, then have low blood sugar
shock. In which case, Insulin wouldn't matter. This is just my
understanding of it. Correct me if I'm wrong.
7/14/97 Update
Mike Hanks: [Concerning Sean Savage's suggestion that a "superior officer" insisted on frisking the prisoners,] That's just it, though. A DEA field agent is NOT a superior officer to
ANY member of the U.S. Marshals service, even a mere guard. In real life
the guard would have said something like "Pardon me sir, but this is a
matter for the U.S. Marshals service. If you would please step back."
(For purposes of analogy, think of a Precinct Captain from the NYPD going
to visit a police precinct in Los Angeles. No matter what rank he is in
the NYPD, he doesn't outrank anybody in the LAPD.)
7/28/97 Update
Jeffrey M. Muscato: This is something of a matter of opinion, but a Seacamp .32 isn't exactly
the best combat pistol. Glock makes an excellent "pocket" 9mm that's 5
inches long and holds 10+1 rounds of 9mm ammo.
Many movies show people duck or jump "just at the last second " from an
explosion and survive. Not only survive, but be completely unharmed, with
even their clothing not singed. If you jump from one side of the line to
the other (the line being where you survive and don't) you'll be *very*
badly burned and need to go to the ER, ICU, and eventually need to have skin
grafts and all the nasty stuff that happens when third degree burns cover
most of your body. Example -- the guy jumping down from the explosion in
the jail cell.
8/11/97 Update
Jeffrey M. Muscato: Regarding Doc Nickel's comments above, as well as expanding on my own
above: people's don't get thrown through the air by an explosion and not
get hurt. Remember -- it's the (very hot) *explosion* that's pushing them!
It's not like the burning explosion and the shock wave are two seperate
things. If you get thrown by an explosion, it means that the explosion came
into contact with you. In other words, "poof!" you're gone.
I'm not an expert in law enforcement or prisoner transport (in fact, I have
no experience whatsoever) but it would seem to me that the level of
restraints used on a person would depend on the likliehood of escape, not on
the seriousness of one's crime. It's true that the Boston Mangler *might*
have special escape training, but I'm still wondering why the "professional
escape artist" (John Mason/Sean Connery) in "The Rock" was only shackled
hand and foot -- I'd think he'd be better able to escape than the Boston
Mangler. But in Con-Air, Steve Bucemi's character (the Boston Mangler) was
covered head to toe in restraints.
If you would like to add some comments,
drop me a note at chief@nitcentral.com.
Please put "Con Air" in the Subject line and include your real
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of the e-mail so I can give you credit if you are the first person to bring
up a particular nit. (Remember the legalese: Everything you submit becomes
mine and you grant me the right to use your name in any future publication
by me. I will do my best to give you credit if you are the first person to
submit a particular nit but I make no guarantees. And finally, due to the
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not be acknowledged. However, your submission will earn you a membership in the Nitpickers Guild if you are not already a member!)
Copyright 1997 by Phil Farrand. All Rights Reserved.